Earlier this year, we made Mystery Math Town a Top Pick app.
This brand-new app from Artgig Apps is
just as strong, taking users on a new
journey through multiple museums.

Mystery Math Museum is a fun and engaging way for kids from
6-12 to practice math skills. The goal is to help a cute little ghost find all
of his dragonflies, delivered to the wrong museums. This museum town must have
an evil custodian, because the dragonflies are spread out in each museum.
Thankfully, the process of finding each jar is fun and engaging enough to keep
the user practicing math facts.

The app is customizable, allowing for multiple user accounts
set up to each player’s ability. In my house, both my 4th grader and
1st grader have an account (along with me, of course, as a math app
addict!). The 6-year-old can work on addition and subtraction (three different
levels of each) while the 9-year-old can work on multiplication and division
in a much better format than yet another worksheet.

The developers have included nearly everything I find
essential in a high-quality app. There is a great visual tutorial available at
all times from the home page, but there’s also a learn-as-you-go tutorial,
perfect for users like me who need to actually try it out before
instructions make sense.

There are no in-app purchases or ads in this app, and the
only external links are behind a parental gate and lead more Artgig Apps in the App Store. The sound can even be turned off!

However, this is also my only suggestion for improving the app. It can only be turned off
from the main homepage, and navigating away from a museum in the middle of
playing will start the level over. It also mutes all sound entirely. As always,
there should be a way to mute the music independent of the clever sound
effects. Though constant music starts to irritate me after just a little bit, I
left it on for this great app — the sound effects are simply too good to miss.

The reward system in Mystery Math Museum, like in Mystery
Math Town, includes talking portraits to
hang in a gallery. It’s such a funny
reward, but so enticing! The portraits tell a story, too, adding an extra layer
of education to the app.

Each museum features many rooms, each featuring a plethora
of items relating to the museum’s theme. In order to view each gallery in the
museums, a math problem must be solved.

The user can travel through both doors and windows, but only
after solving the math problem. The numbers are dispersed in the rooms, and
they need to be collected and saved in order to enter some rooms. This aspect
of saving numbers added another layer of math to Mystery Math Museum — problem
solving is especially important in the Common Core State Standards!

Each museum is more like a maze than a museum (kind of how I
feel at Chicago’s wonderful Museum of Science and Industry), adding another
layer of thought to this app’s use.

The app isn’t simply math, though. Each room features
multiple interactive elements. In the music museum, the first room features a
grand piano, ticking metronome, a lamp to turn on and off, and a talking
musician portrait. Mystery Math Museum also features basement rooms with big
yellow snails and realistic mice.

This game was so fun, my 9-year-old son chose to play
Mystery Math Museum over some of his other favorite game apps (including
Minecraft!) on a day when he didn’t have to choose something educational. He
loved the mystery and search for dragonflies. My daughter had more fun playing
with the interactive elements in each room, but also did quite a bit of math as
she searched for more fun sounds.

Mystery Math Museum may be difficult to use in a classroom
setting — all of the dragonflies need to be
found in a museum level before
navigating away, or the progress is lost. When the user needs to find seven
little flying bugs (or more), it takes quite a bit of time, and it might be
hard to complete before moving on.

However, it’s perfect for home practice, and makes math drill
practice a lot more fun while letting kids work on problem solving skills at the same
time. This is a must-download for parents with kids in the target range!

*****

Heather H. admits to playing several levels of this app late into the night so as not to lose her dragonflies. SmartAppsForKids.com was paid a priority review fee to complete this review in an expedited manner.